Note 43 — HOLLAND, ENGLAND, AND THE SEASON OF WAITING, IN GERMANY.

At this time the famous Anastasi papyri were also offered for sale in Berlin through Lepsius, and for a comparatively low price. Yet at that time there were no funds forthcoming for their purchase. The same thing occurred with the beautiful Dorbiney papyrus, which was sent to Berlin in 1851 to be sold, and was examined by Lepsius. He writes, “I would not myself consider the two thousand pounds too dear for such a work of the fourteenth century, which perhaps was put before Moses as a reading-book. But now they would not give eight hundred thalers for it here.” Eighty to a hundred pounds were offered to Miss Dorbiney for it at that time by Olfers; if he had gone a little higher, this treasure would have come to Berlin, but soon after de Rougé deciphered its interesting contents, and it then went, if I am rightly informed, for two thousand pounds, to London.